Harvest Moon: Odd Bazaar
by Chicken Yuki
Summary: Usually, Zephyr Town Farmer Jonah had a smooth time bringing in customers for the bazaar. And yet, it was always the local beauty, Freya, that would ellude his sales.  Consdering their strong friendship, this was strange.  But this time, he has a plan...


_**Disclaimer: All Your Havest Moon are belong to Marvelous Interactive and Natsume.**_

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**Harvest Moon: Odd Bazaar**

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It was the final weekend of Spring in Zephyr Town. Once more, the weekly bazaar was open for business, and its various citizens showcased their stock to the potential customers piling in from both outside and inside their own humble burg.

The first most would see is the mighty Mayor Felix, renown by many for his boisterous behavior and "muscles of fury". He had an odd stock consisting of chocolate and farming tools, yet his stand sold consistently well each week.

The more notable place of business, however, was the reputed "Anything Goes" stand as run by local farmer Jonah Mendell. With his messy brown hair and puppy-dog blue eyes, Jonah was perhaps the most baby-faced individual of Zephyr Town, rivaled only by the more playful Dirk who outshines him with his juvenile interests. Despite that, Jonah was typically among the most upstanding of citizens. The cheery, polite behavior that he displays during his bazaar runs only reinforced this image to the outsiders who enjoy his charming style of customer service.

However, there was always one presence that usually irked him whenever he set up shop:

Freya, the social city worker.

With her long, brunette hair, along with mature and sisterly appeal, some have considered her a near incomparable beauty among the youth of Zephyr Town. It was even rumored that she possessed a heavenly singing voice, yet this gossip remained unconfirmed by many.

On normal days, Jonah and Freya actually got along as friends, and perhaps even more than that. Freya seemed interested in Jonah's consistent work ethic, while Johan was enthralled in her drive to continuously improve herself. Of course, there were likely more subtle, intriguing that drew one another close, but perhaps these things were harder to place in words.

Perhaps it was just their growing friendship? Or maybe it was a budding romance?

Whatever it was, the two always made time to see each other before Freya had to leave for daily job.

But then this cheerful banter would go away whenever Jonah manned his stand at the bazaar, because, for whatever reason, his usual friend Freya would inexplicably pace back and forth right in front of him without bothering to conduct any business whatsoever.

This was the only time she really aggravated him, yet when she did, this annoyed him greatly.

In the past, he'd call out to her, wondering if she'd bother coming up, but she typically waved back wordlessly. Other times, she would come up to the stand, stare at the merchandise for a few moments, but then go away wordlessly to pace and back forth, being a very confused shopkeeper staring at her back.

This time, however, Jonah had something different up his sleeve.

Right after attending a huge wave of customers, the young salesperson rang his service bell aloud, all the while glaring ruthlessly at his regular window shopper.

For awhile, Freya tried to ignore the attention put on her, and even went as far as to try and divert his attention to more customers, but this couldn't last. Finally, she made her way to the counter once more.

"Good day," Jonah muttered irritably.

"Um… uh, hey! Jonah!" Freya replied, trying to sound as non-chalant as possible.

It was perfectly clear on this bazaar weekend that the seller wouldn't mince words this time.

"Are you actually going to buy something this time, or are you going to keep taking up space?" Jonah asked directly.

"I'm… still trying to decide…" Freya answered rather awkwardly.

"Really?" Jonah sighed, "Freya, I've already been here for three bazaars. You attended every one so far, and each and every time you just stood back there while I actually had business with every body else. Not once did you actually but something, or even look interested in what I had! At the very least I thought you might be interested in my farm products, but apparently the city has better eggs and milk than I do."

"H-hey, you know I have a budget to work with," Freya said shakily.

"Is it really that much cheaper there?" Jonah demanded to know.

The womanly brunette just stood there, silently, unable to offer another excuse of an answer.

"You know, at first I might have thought you were testing me or something. Each time we talked, I remember how much you were interested in the two of us trying to bring out the best in each other. I figured that maybe were trying to get me to be a better salesperson by motivating me into finding a better pitch. I've actually done much better now, but it wasn't in any way thanks to you. Actually, you've been doing a much better job making business for the bazaar more difficult because you keep getting in the way of incoming customers with your constant pacing. Aside from that, all you do is stare at my produce every few minutes, but you clearly don't look interested in anything I have to sell. What I want to know is, if you're not even going to bother buying my stuff, or even just stop by to talk, what's the use staying back there?"

Freya seemed reluctant to divulge a clear truth. Again, her tongue was tied right until she came up with a better diverting question.

"Why don't you try even harder?" she taunted, while doing a mental sigh of relief.

And yet, this only elicited a smirk from the crafty farmer.

"I've actually developed a new tactic in case that was your ploy," Jonah replied.

"And what do you mean by-"

Freya words were cut short by a spoonful of sample strawberry jam Jonah had on hand.

"May I present to you sample of my new product: home-cooked jam made from freshly-grown strawberries on my farm. Let me tell you, it took me a lot of effort to contact the proper seed importer to get this in, but the payoff was worth now. Now, I already learned my lesson the hard way when you rejected that strawberry wine I offered you the other day, but I took it you simply didn't like your alcohol sweetened in any way. But maybe, just maybe you would feel a bit different about a little home-made confection? The jam's been one of my hottest new items with the customers." He explained.

For awhile, Freya allowed the strawberry flavor to settle in her mouth as she stared blankly into space. She seemed keen in allowing her saliva to dissolve the sticky red matter, but she eventually swallowed. She then took the spoon out of her mouth, gave it back to Jonah, and looked at him shyly.

"I'll take three," she barely uttered while holding up just as many fingers in front of her.

"That'll be 250 each," Jonah replied.

Complying quickly as she could, Freya took out her wallet and removed 750 G to pay for her order. After Jonah readied the three jars, Freya offered her payment and received the jars in return.

"Thank you," Freya answered quietly.

Immediately after, Freya turned around and promply walked away from the stand while desperately hiding her madly-blushing face.

This latest transaction left a rather shocked and surprised Jonah at the bar to stare at her back.

"That actually worked…" he uttered to himself.


End file.
